/ 
yp J 

THE 



ALDEN PROCESS 



OF 



PRESERVING AND PERFECTING 

Fruits, Vegetables, Meats, Fish, 

<fec, 



BY PNEUMATIC EVAPORATION AND 

SUPER-MATURATION. 

u-^ / 



U.S.A. ^j) 

ALDEN FRUIT-PRESEEviwrt COMPAQ 

123 Chambers Street. / , 

NEW YORK. 






PRINTED BY L ANGE & HILL MAN, 
At 207 Pearl Street, New York. 



THE ALDEN PROCESS. 



The recently matured discoveries of Mr. Charles Alden, of 
Newburgh, N. Y. (original inventor of the -well-known condensing 
and desiccating processes), in the perfecting, refining, and preserv- 
ing of organic products, open to mankind a new realm of knowledge 
and power, with new and illimitable ranges of profitable enterprise. 

It may be said with all sobriety and restraint, that the Alden 
Process of Pneumatic Evaporation and Super-maturation adds from 
fifty to one hundred per cent, to the production available from every 
acre of soil, apart from cereals, and excepting the few acres that are 
profitably devoted to market gardening in the vicinity of cities. 

Whether we consider the magnitude, the profit, the security, or 
the facility, of operations under the Alden patents, a searching ex- 
amination will disclose no other line of enterprise ever yet opened 
so justly alluring to active business men, whether with large or small 
capital. 

To owners of farm lands, the Alden Evaporator is better than a 
railroad, and equal to a city neighborhood. In any secluded local- 
ity, this provision for realizing on the more lucrative but perishable 
crops, could hardly fail to raise the value of tillable lands by twenty- 
five per cent. With its aid many novel and delicious forms of 
food are developed, and all grades of soil and climate will now 
produce crops of the richest character, heretofore impracticable or 
worthless except in favored localities. 

We can here enter but sparingly into the explanation and proof 
of these statements, inviting, rather, those interested to call at the 
office of the Alden Fruit Preserving Company, No. 123 Chambers 
street, and verify whatever seems most incredible, by examining the 
products for themselves. For those, again, who prefer to base their 
opinion of results upon a philosophical knowledge of causes, we have 
in preparation a full explanation of the chemical effect of pneumatic 
evaporation upon the succulent food elements of plants, together 
with a Report of high authority on the comparative chemical analy- 
ses of the Alden and other fruits and vegetables, made by the emi- 
nent organic chemist, Dr. St. Krackowizer, of Vienna, and now of 



16.62 water, 23.08 sugar, and 60.30 other matters; total, 100. 
The mucous matter, &c, had lost 9.80 parts (14 per cent.), and the 
sugar had gained 4.33, or over 23 per cent.* 

The superior richness therein demonstrated, and confirmed by the 
testimony of the senses, with the great saving in sugar attending 
the use of the Alden fruits, would suffice alone to assure to the man- 
ufacturer a higher price than fruits and vegetables command when 
preserved in a cumbrous, hazardous, quasi fresh state, or in the more 
ordinary dried and deteriorated form. But when we add to these 
advantages the undeniable freshness of the Alden products, in all 
their compactness and portability, requiring only the addition of 
pure water to yield fresh fruit for pies, sauces, and puddings, and 
fresh vegetables and salads for the table, at any season, or at any 
point on the globe, whether in the midst of the Great Desert, on the 
vast ocean, or in Arctic snows, it becomes abundantly certain that 
the demand for these products must increase much faster than it 
would be physically possible for capital, laboi*, and land to supply 
them, and that prices, for a generation to come, must rule high for 
domestic and foreign markets, in comparison with any pre-existing 
forms of preserved fruits and vegetables ; and yet not high in com- 
parison with their green equivalents as now marketed, to a limited 
extent and for short seasons, in populous localities. 

We subjoin some of the commercial data thus far obtained by 

* ANALYSIS -Prom Prof. Krackowizer'a Report: column No. 1, giving the proportions of 
the several constituents in 500 parts fresh B.ildwin apples — No. 2, the proportions obtained 
from a similar quantity oi the same lot of fruit after being reduced to 100 parts (losing 400 parls 
of water) by " dessication " with a patent steam apparatus, in the finest possible manner — No. 
3, the proportions obtained from a like quantity of the same lot of fruit after being reduced 
and preserved by the Alden Process of Pneumatic Evaporation : 

FRESH. DESICCATED. (ALDEN). 

Water (free or bound) 41115 12.4-2 16.62 

Cellulose, or fibrous skeleton of the fruit.. ... 9 (i'> 

Amylaceous cellulose (analogous to starch) 32 .95 

Protein (analogous to albumen).... 75 

Pectine (analogous to gelatine) 12.35 

Bassoriu (gummy matter) ... 6.75 

Acids (tartaric, citric, formic, malic, and traces 

. ofoxalic) 6.70 

Mineral matter 85 

Ohlorophyl and extracts 15 

Essential ethyls (imponderable traces) . . 0.00 

Dextrine (starch gum) 0.00 

Grape Sugar 18.75 

500.00 100.09 100.00 

N.B.— The item of dextrine, or starch gum, peculiar to the desiccated fruit, is due (says the 
Professor) (0 the influence of dry heat, aid is practically a dead loss in all preservation by means 
of dry heat. The absence of this item in the Alden fruit, as well as the presence of 4. SO extra 
parts of water (chemically bound, as Jiyciratt), exhibits the influence of the humidity, which 
is an important chemical agent, in the Alden Pneumatic blast. 



10.54 ... 


10.22 


30.95 ... 


20.75 


80 ... 


76 


11.35 ... 


10 N8 


7.22 ... 


4.33 


4.8S ... 


. . .. 3.43 


87 ... 


78 


.12 .. 


15 


0.00 ... 


0.00 


2.10 ... 


0.00 


18.75 ... 


. ...23.08 



careful experiment upon a variety of leading articles ; pledging our- 
selves that those who may be induced to verify these data for them- 
selves will find them not exaggerated, but well within bounds, even 
where most astonishing in appearance. 



Operations of One Evaporator, per Week. 

ON APPLES. 

One Evaporator of 40 frames, carrying £ bushel per frame, 2 
frames entering and coming out every 9 minutes, makes 160 frames, 
or 80 bushels, in 12 hours. Total, say 500 bushels per week, run- 
ning half time ; or, 1,000 bushels, running full time. 

500 bushels, 50 lbs. each — 25,000 lbs. ; less 80 per cent, water, leaves 
10 lbs. dehydrated fruit per bushel, or 5,000 lbs. per week (half time) ; 
average, 15 cts. per lb $750 00 

Cost, 4f cts. per lb., as follows : 500 bushels apples, at 25 cts.. $125 00 
3 girls on paring-machines, 1 

1 girl on slic'mg-machine, I ^ . , ^ L ftn 

6 girls spreading fruit on frames, f ll girlS ' at ^ 5 5d 0U 

1 girl taking off " " J 

Engineer, $12 ; man, $9 ; boy, $6 27 00 

3 tons coal, $7 21 00 

Kent, interest, etc 10 00 $238 00 

Net profit per week, half time $512 00 

full time 1,024 00 

In case apples cost 50 cts. per bushel, net profits will be $387 to $774. Results 
at any given price for fruit may be readily calculated by considering the total 
for all other expenses as 23 cts. per bushel, or 2£ cts. per lb. of evaporated fruit 
— cheaper than it can be home-dried in the most ordinary manner ! 

Note. — One-fifth, or 2 lbs. per bushel, of the above product, consists of cores 
and skins, dehydrated separately, and sold for making jell}'. Allowing these to 
go into the total, reduces the average price to 12 cts., as given. Or, calling the 
pure Alden apple 17£ cts. per lb. (we have not been able to supply a tithe of the 
wholesale demand at twenty cts.), and the cores and skins 6 cts., comes to the 
same thing. If the cores and skins be made into jelly and marmalade (under 
Mr. Alden's Improved .Exhausting Process), they will yield 30 per cent, heavy 
jelly, without sugar, or 300 lbs. (half time) per week, at an extra cost, of, at most, 
5 cts. per lb., and worth, in first hands, at least 75 cts., or $210, net. The resi- 
duum is entirely soluble, except hulls, and, if treated with fruit acids and sugar, 
will make excellent marmalade, or " apple butter," yielding at least 10 cts. per 
lb., net, for say 700 lbs., $42. Total, $252 net, from the manufacture of 1,000 
lbs. cores and skins. This is over 25 cts. per lb. ; showing, that 6 cts. per 
lb., as a factory price for the raw material, is well within bounds. Instead of 



8 

marmalade, however, a new and luscious conserve, called finit cheese, will pro- 
bably absorb the residuum of apples, peaches, etc., in the future. 

N. B. — The jelly here meant is not the common jelly of commerce, but a con- 
centrated article, requiring no sugar or other substance, or boiling, for its manu- 
facture and preservation. To make an equivalent for the ordinary jelly, retailed 
at $1 per lb., at least 10 lbs. of water, with sugar, should be added to every 
pound of the concentrated jelly. Or, to imitate that article more precisely, if 
desired, add 30 lbs. sugar to the pound of concentrated jelly, with water enough 
for solution, fruit acids, flavors, gelatine, etc., raising the quantity to, say, 50 lbs., 
on the basis of 1 lb. pure apple jelly. 

N. B., 2. — Small, gnarled, and windfall fruit, usually wasted, will yield, per 
bushel, 3 lbs. jelly, $2.25, or, say, $2 50, net, with net value of residuum for 
marmalade. The product of a week's work on this description of fruit would 
therefore be worth $1,250, while the fruit would only cost half price, and the 
cost of paring would also be saved. 

ON PEACHES. 

Particulars the same as with apples, except the reduction of 
fruit by evaporation and pits is 84 per cent., leaving (from fair, good- 
sized peaches) 8 lbs. per bushel of 50 lbs. 500 bushels per week 
(half time) yield 4,000 lbs. dehydrated fruit, averaging 30 cts. — 
$1,200; and V50 lbs. skins, worth, for jelly and marmalade, cts. 
per lb.— $45. Total, $1,245. 

Cost. — 500 bushels, at 50 cts., is $250; expenses, as before, $113; with 10 
girls extra, for paring and slicing, $50. Total cost, $413 ; or, about 10 cts. per 
lb. Net profit per week, half time, $832. Net profit per week, full time, $1,064. 

In case peaches cost 75 cts. per bushel, profits will be $707 to $1,414. Peaches 
worth $1 per bushel will yield choice fruit at a more than compensating extra 
price. 

ON TOMATOES. 

At 60 lbs. per bushel, losing 93^ per cent, water and waste, making 

4 lbs. dehydrated fruit, and requiring about twice the time of apples 

and peaches, the consumption and product per week are : 

250 bushels, making 1,000 lbs., at 75 cts $750 00 

Cost : 19 cts per lb., viz. : 250 bushels, at 35 cts $S7 50 

Evaporation, etc. (10 girls and 1 man) 102 00 $189 ,50 

Net profit per week, half time $560 50 

full time 1,121 00 

Note. — The price placed upon this new article (compressed in solid cakes) 
compares thus with that of canned tomatoes, inferior to it in quality and fitness 
for exportation to distant markets: 1 lb. of Alden tomatoes is equal to 6 qts. 
canned tomatoes ; and 75 cts. per lb. for the former is therefore equivalent to 
12^ cts. per qt. can, or $1.50 per dozen, for the latter — a price at which it would 
be impossible to purchase them from first hands, and on the largest scale. 



9 

ON SWEET POTATOES. 
This vegetable requires one-third more time for evaporating than 
apples, and will turn out 360 bushels per week, half time. At 60 
lbs. per bushel, losing 70 per cent, water and refuse, and yielding 
18 lbs. dehydrated vegetable, the weekly work will be : 

360 bushels, 6,480 lbs. (dehydrated). 10 cts $648 00 

Cost: 3| cts. per lb., viz.: 360 bushels, at 40 cts., $144 00 

Evaporation, etc., with 16 girls 138 00 282 00 

Net profit per week, half time, $366 00 

full time, 733 00 

This article will find unlimited market throughout the world at 

all seasons of the year, and in most countries will be a luxury as 

novel as delicious, retaining, as it does, all the properties of the 

sweet potato in perfection, and requiring only a few hours in pure 

water to be ready for frying, or cooking by steam. 

Mention may properly be made here of the delicious syrup ob- 
tained from the dehydrated sweet potato, at a trifling expense, by 
Mr. Alden's patent exhausting process. The yield is over one gallon 
per bushel, of the heaviest and richest quality, 11 lbs. to the gallon. 
The average product per acre is 500 bushels, yielding, at only $1 
per gallon, $500 in syrup, and a residuum of 5,000 lbs. flour, worth 
at least $ 150. The cost of manufacture, without paring, need not 
exceed the value of the flour, leaving the syrup, $500, as the annual 
clear product of tillage per acre. 

This syrup is pronounced by all who have tasted it the finest ar- 
ticle ever yet known. The manufacture of the sugar is as yet un- 
developed ; but, in preserved sweet potatoes, syrup, and flour, to go 
no further, our Southern States will find at once a product and a 
market practically illimitable, and that must, ere long, rival their 
cotton itself in aggregate value, while greatly surpassing it in profit.. 
The flour makes delicious griddle or batter cakes, puddings, pies,, 
and bread, and it is believed will yet become one of the most popu- 
lar and important of breadstuffs. 

ON PUMPKINS AND SQUASHES. 

1,440 pumpkins, averaging 15 lbs., losing 93^ per 
cent, water and refuse, yield 1 lb. each dehydrated 

pumpkin, 1,440 lbs., 30 cts $432 G#> 

Cost : la cts per lb., viz : 1,440 pumpkins at 

4 cts . $57 60 

Manipulating and evaporation (14 girls) 133 00 189 60 

Net profit per week, half time, $2-13 40 

full time, 484 80 

Season, say 17 weeks. Total 8,24160., 



10 

In the case of this vegetable, also, the price paid the farmer gives 
him a very profitable crop in northern climates, and without en- 
grossing land for other purposes. In reckoning purely agricultural 
profits, per acre, this crop, (1,000 pumpkins, $40), and that of sweet 
corn, hereafter stated ($60), should be added together, making $100. 

To the evaporating season for pumpkins above should also be 
added two months on summer squashes," which will add another new 
summer delicacy for the table all the year and world around, and 
will raise the season's work to over $12,000. 

The most important consideration on this part of the subject re- 
mains to be stated. The pumpkin will rival the beet in the produc- 
tion of sugar, through the aid of the Alden processes. It has a large 
percentage of saccharine matter naturally, besides a rich supply of 
mucus for conversion to sugar by super-maturation. Sugar is un- 
doubtedly destined to become, by means of this great discovery, a 
product more universal, and hardly less abundant and cheap than 
wheat or Indian corn. 

The winter squash gives data somewhat different from the pump- 
kin. A week's work (half time), 1,440 squashes, costing 10 cents 
each, will make 1,800 lbs., 35 cts. — $630. Cost of evaporation, $237, 
and profit $393 ; or full time, $786. 

ON SWEET CORN. 

76,800 ears per week, or 19,200 lbs. off cob, give 

9,600 lbs. preserved at 10 cts $960 00 

Cost : 4J cts. per lb., viz. : 76 > 800 ears at 30 

cts! per 100 $230 40 

Expenses (30 girls) 208 00 438 40 

Net profit per week, half time, $521 60 

full time, 1,043 20 

Evaporating on cob will save cost in hands, and afford an article 
to be preferred by many, as undistinguishable on the table from 
summer green corn. 

This crop will yield 4 good ears per hill from 5,000 hills per acre ; 
20,000 ears, $60, besides imperfect ears and green fodder worth fully 
the cost of the whole crop, and pumpkins, as above, $40; total, $100 
net profit per acre to the farmer. 

GRAPES, CURRANTS, BLACKBERRIES, CHERRIES, AND 
SMALL FRUITS GENERALLY. 

Grapes, currants, etc., are beautifully raisined by pneumatic evap- 
oration, and from this condition extracts are drawn with great 



11 



facility producing improved descriptions of syrups from which, 

compare favorably with the majority of those imported. 

The green currant and gooseberry, after evaporation, ,,11 e 
available the year ronnd and in all markets for making pies of the 
"eL flavor characteristic of .hose fnuts, and so much preferred 
b many persons. The ripe enrrant raisin will now prove a rich 
and novel article for pies as well as puddings. 

All the small fruits are dehydrated and preserved ,„ a snpenoi 
manner and from the blackberry or cherry a concentration » made 
"hkTwill produce at a few hours' notice, anywhere (w.th the addi- 
tion of alcohol, water, and sugar), a blackberry brandy, or cherry 
rum, of the finest possible quality. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

All kinds of salads and delicate vegetables, such as onions, aspar- 

ttti cabbages, celery, spinach, peas, Lima beans, and others already 

nlned, are preserved fresh and dehydrated for all seasons of the 

• year ami all markets of the world, returning at any tune, m water, 

to their original color, flavor, and other properties. _ 

Roots, as potatoes, turnips, parsnips and carrots are greatly im- 
proved in sweetness and purity of flavor, while reduced to a com- 
pact, portable, and imperishable form. 

P The manufacture of grape sugar from the starch ot the common 
potato, and of cane, beet, sorghum and other sugars, will be greatly 
increased in productiveness and quality, while cheapened m cost, by 
the aid of the Aldan processes. 

The curing of tobacco and hops, and the drying of glue, are im- 
portant branches of manufacture to which this process must be ap- 
plied saving a vast amount of waste, deterioration, and outright 
sacrifice of materials, incident to the present methods, and rendering 
the operations rapid, cheap, and certain. 

Beef pork, mutton, and fish, will yet be cured by tins method ex- 
clusively saving the immense consumption (waste) of salt, and the 
]o<s of fully 33 per cent, nutriment, now destroyed dnvctly by the 
action of the salt; and very much increasing both the demand and 
supply in preserved meals and fish. These animal products are 
sweet, rich, and proof against decay. 



12 

Fine specimens of dehydrated clams have been obtained by this 
process, making equally fresh-flavored and delicious soup and chow- 
der with the fresh article, and fitted for indefinite preservation in 
any climate. 

THE APPARATUS. 

The chief mechanical parts are (1) the evaporating or pneumatic 
chamber, ordinarily 5 feet square and 15 feet high ; (2) the revolving 
endless chains, one at each corner of the chamber, running vertically 
and carrying brackets to support the fruit frames, nine inches apart, 
and each carrying half a bushel of fruit ; (3) the steam coil at the 
bottom of the chamber, containing about 3,000 feet of pipe, con- 
nected with a boiler, for heating the air blast ; (4) the boiler and 
engine for driving the blower ; (5) the blower. The fruit enters at 
the top of the chamber, where the air blast issues out in a tepid and 
slightly humid state from having passed through twenty to forty 
frames of fruit. This blast here takes off the surface moisture from 
the fruit quickly, but not so perfectly as to encrust it. At every 
nine minutes the carrying chains move the whole series of fruit- 
frames downward in the chamber, by the depth of one interval or 
two, according to the moisture of the fruit, two frames at the bottom 
being taken out and two freshly filled being put in at the top. As 
the fruit descends the blast becomes gradually warmer and freer 
from humidity, until its highest temperature is found at the lowest 
interval, whei'e it is from* 160 to 175 degrees Fahrenheit. The cost 
of the entire apparatus above described is $2,500. The necessary 
buildings will of course vary in cost with the nature and extent of 
the operations, but need not be of an expensive character. Where 
available water or steam power is already in operation, the above 
cost will be diminished accordingly. 

THE ALDEN FRUIT-PRESERVING COMPANY 

Has been organized by substantial and prudent business men, for 
the purpose of manufacturing the machinery and selling territorial 
rights. Their office and warerooms are at No. 123 Chambers Street, 
where samples of a variety of preserved fruits and vegetables may 
be seen, and information freely afforded, terms of royalty stated, 
whether on produce or territory, etc. The rights for a number of 
States have already been bespoken, and an active inquiry is coming 
in from all quarters. 



13 

A Company in Trenton, N. J., have purchased the right for 
Mercer County, and are putting up a large establishment in that 
city, capable of turning out 20,000 lbs. of evaporated fruit or 
vegetables per week. Another Company at Neshanic, N. J., have 
invested $12,000 to $15,000 in apparatus and buildings, which will 
be in operation by the 1st of May. 

Other parties have purchased the right and machinery for #ifea* * 
fJMNk County, N. J., to evaporate the water from clams. Com- 
panies have also been formed, and counties purchased in this State, 
*a§ also in Warren Co., N. C, in Fairfax, Loudon, and Alexandria 
counties in Virginia, and in other places. 

Believing that the present opportunity of securing territory under 
the Alden patents is one of such lucrative character as can rarely 
offer twice in a lifetime, we sincerely recommend all who think of 
acting upon it to lose no time in securing their chosen territory, and 
taking an early stand in the new market of Aldex Fresii-Pre- 
served Fruits and Vegetables. Patents in foreign countries are 
now being secured. 

As the establishment of evaporating factories in every rural dis- 
trict is to be of prime importance to farmers, it will be generally 
practicable and advantageous to organize local joint stock compa- 
nies (on the principle of the successful butter and cheese factory 
system), in which all those interested can participate. The Alden 
Fruit-Preserving Company, of New York, will be prepared to re- 
ceive consignments, make advances, and sell on commission, at 
customary rates. 

OFFICIAL AND PRESS REPORTS. 

Extract of Letter received from M. C. Spaulding, of Dubuque, Iowa, dated Nov. 

7th, 1870. 

Your invention seems destined to work a complete revolution in the modes of 
preserving fruits and various articles of food. 

It is truly a benefaction to the race, for it will result in rendering the products 
of all climes common and accessible to all others ; the tropics will by this process 
exchange its fruits with the temperate and frigid zones, and every man will 
become a resident of every clime, as far as its particular fruits are concerned. 

Winter will be partially converted into summer. The poor can enjoy some of 
the winter luxuries of the rich. 

Extract from Report of Farmers' Club, American Institute, N. Y. 
* * * * No chance for dust, flies, bees, or any other insect to interfere with it, 
and is perfectly clean, as all the work is done by machinery. This is believed 



14 

to be the first attempt to preserve tomatoes by evaporating the water from tliem, 
or by any other way except by canning. It is well known that most fruits con- 
tain some 80 per cent, water, but the tomato contains about 28 quarts water in 
every bushel. This machine is intended to evaporate and carry off nearly 3,000 
quarts water from tomatoes every twenty-four hours, leaving- the tomatoes in 
fine condition for pressing and packing, with all the saccharine matter undis- 
turbed, feeling as soft as a preserved fig, which it very much resembles, and will 
in^J^gt condition keep a very long time, retaining all their natural flavor, color, 
and taste, and when soaked in cold water and cooked are equal to fresh tomatoes, 
having much less acid than the canned tomatoes, and of much finer flavor — and 
free from the poisonous effects of the tin, and can be sold for one-half the price. 
There is no one fruit more extensively used in this country than the tomato, and 
with this new invention thousands of acres of land will be brought into requisition 
to supply the demand, which will soon be largely increased, as the cost of trans- 
portation when evaporated will be very small when compared to the canned toma- 
toes ; as it takes thirty-three cans to hold a bushel of tomatoes, weighing, when 
packed for transportation, nearly 100 pounds against 4 pounds — the weight of one 
bushel evaporated tomatoes. The peaches preserved by evaporation are as fra- 
grant as a fresh basket of ripe peaches, and when cooked will have the same 
rich taste and aroma. The evaporated apples look as white and clean as a fresh 
cut apple, and when cooked will have all the taste and flavor of the natural 
fruit — quite a different article from the dried apple in every respect. Evaporated 
potatoes, onions, cabbages, parsnips, and turnips when cooked are precisely like the 
fresh article. Sweet corn, green peas, and all other vegetables obtain the same 
result by passing through the evaporating process, as also the strawberry, rasp- 
berry, and all other small fruit. No fruit need now be lost even in the remotest 
parts of our country for want of a market to dispose of it at a fair price. 

From N. Y. Daily Tribune, Oct. 21st, 1870. 

* * * * Mode is by evaporation produced through forced currents of rarefied 
air, graduated from a low to a higher temperature, following a well recognized 
law of nature, and producing quite different results from the old process of kiln- 
drying. * * * * * * The cores and skins, as well as the windfall and 
other refuse fruit, are converted into jelly without the use of sugar, by reason of 
a chemical change wrought through the process. ******* Have 
eaten some of the sauce and pie made from the prepared apple, and were unable 
to tell any difference between it and that made from fresh fruit. 

From N. T. Independent, November 3d, 1870. 

We copy from the N". T. Tribune, in another column, an article on Alden's 
new process of preserving fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. 

Having visited the store of the Company, at 123 Chambers Street, in this city, 
and examined their fruits, etc., in bulk, we are free to commend it as a truly 
wonderful discovery. 

We tasted many of the articles, as prepared for the table, and were unable to 
detect any difference) in taste and flavor from those freshly gathered ; many of 



15 

them, too— such as apples, peaches, berries, etc.— were prepared with one-half 
the sugar required for fresh fruits. The Company maintain that, after paying 
the producer a very large profit, all articles can be furnished at a far less price 
tiian by any other process. In view of the almost unlimited foreign demand for 
our fruits at medium prices, it would seem that the new process would be the 
means of adding largely to our export products. 

We noticed, while in the office of the Company, several persons from various 
sections negotiating for State and county rights and machinery. 

From the Nevo York Weekly Tribune, Oct. 26th, 1870. 

[The following extract relates to the operations of Mr. Alexander Palmer, the 
well-known fruit-grower, of Modena, N. Y., under the Alden patents. Mr. 
Palmer, last year, purchased the right for his county (Ulster) and erected a fac- 
tory with two evapor itors, which were run on tomatoes, apples, peaches, sweet 
and northern potatoes, sweet corn, onions, etc., with satisfactory results. The 
Agricultural Editor of the Tribune visited Mr. Palmer's factory in the fall, and 
reported in his paper as follows :] 

" Alden's Evaporating Process.— Charles Alden, of Newburgh, N. Y., has 
been for ten or twelve years known as the leading inventor in all methods of 
preserving juicy substances of food by removing the water of the fruits, leaving 
only the solid portions. He was of great use to the army in our war, by devising 
methods of supplying vegetables and fruits to the camps in a form that could be 
transported great distances and kept a long time. Within a year, he has per- 
fected a process which must prove of very great importance to all fruit-growing 
sections, that are not in direct and easy communication with great cities. * * * 
We found a building about 60x30, two stories high, and costing some $800 or 
$1,000. Under a shed at one end is a boiler, such as is used to make steam for 
a 12-horse power engine. It consumes about half a ton of coal iu a day of four- 
teen or sixteen hours, when 100 bushels of fruit are dried. The most of the 
steam is taken by a 2-inch pipe into the building, where it passes into a very 
long coil of inch tube, such as is used in warming houses by 6team. There are 
8,000 feet of a tube in this coil, and it is enclosed in a box or chamber only a 
little larger than the coil. Another pipe from the boiler takes part of the steam 
to a small engine, two or three horse-power, which drives a fan-wheel. This 
carries a strong current of fresh air to coil, which immediately becomes heated to 
about 170° or 180°, and at this temperature is driven into the evaporating cham- 
ber. This is vertical, 15 feet high, and 5x5 feet in dimensions. It is furnished 
with four endless chains, that, by a crank and racket-wheel, move inward and 
down the evaporator. At intervals of from six to twelve inches on these chains 
are brackets on hinges, that swing out as the chain moves over the top edge. 
These are to support the sieves, made with a light frame around a net-work of 
tinned wire, or which the fruit is laid. One bushel can be spread on each sieve. 
It is laid on the brackets on the chains at the top of the evaporator ; then a revo- 
lution of the crank lowers it six inches, and another set of brackets come over to 
receive the next sieve, and so on, the sieves travelling the whole distance down 
the evaporator at stages of six inches at a time. With the force now at work, a 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




16 



014 421 148 



tray of pared and sliced apples is made ready every nine minutes. The temper- 
ature at the lower end of the evaporator, where the air is just off the coil, is 
170°, sometimes falling to 165°. At the upper end, where the apples are raw, 
the heat is about 120°. Thus from 50° to 60° of heat are absorbed in carrying 
off the moisture from the apples. The quantity of apples in an evaporator, 15 
feet high, with one-bushel driers at intervals of six inches, is 30 bushels. At the 
bottom are two hands who open a door in the evaporator, and take out a sieve 
of fruit as often as one is added to the top — that is, every nine minutes. A 
bushel gives ten pounds of the evaporated fruit. Tomatoes yield four pounds to 
the bushel. During the day, fair apples, which in Ulster County can be bought 
for 30 cents a bushel, are handled. At night, all the cores and skins, and the 
windfalls and bruised apples, which are bought at 20 cents a bushel, are sliced 
by machinery and placed in the evaporator. These are taken to New York, and 
converted into apple jelly of a fine quality, and apple marmalade. Being dehy- 
drated so rapidly and so soon after being pared, the apples do not become dis- 
colored, but come out very white and clean, and, after being soaked, the slices 
look and taste like fresh pared fruit, and can be made into an apple pie which 
any one would say was composed of fresh apples from the barrel. On account 
of the rapidity of the operation and the peculiar action of the heated air, fruit 
handled in this way does not become acid. A pie can be made with far less 
sugar than is used on fruit prepared in the old way. The evaporating begins 
before the fermenting process has time to start. 

With a boiler such as Mr. Palmer has, steam can be made for three or four 
coils with a little additional coal. At present he has two evaporators, one run- 
ning on apples and the other on tomatoes. He handles 100 bushels of fruit in 
a day, giving 20 to 30 cents for apples and 35 cents for tomatoes. The process 
costs as much as the fruit. Thus, 30 for the apples, 30 for drying — 60 cents. 
For this outlay he gets ten pounds of fruit, worth 15 cents a pound, $1.50 ; 
deduct cost, 60 cents, leaves 90 cents, profit, without reckoning the income from 
jelly and marmalade. 

The expense of the building may be from $500 to $1,000. Boiler, engine, and 
coils, for the two evaporators, cost about $3,000 ; the chains, lumber, and labor, 
for the two evaporators, say $1,000 ; about $5,000 for a dry-house ready for 
work. By using a portable farm-boiler and engine, and a house already standing, 
the cost may be lowered to less than $1,500. Such an establishment can begin 
in the summer on berries, continue on peaches and tomatoes, and run on apples 
till Christmas. In the South, the sweet potato and the fig might make such a 
house more profitable than in an apple country. 

The most noteworthy feature of this process is the facility it gives for preserv- 
ing all the fruit of the neighborhood, the misshapen and bruised apples as well 
as the fair and marketable. At present, only the choice of our orchards is made 
.available. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 421 148 



